


call you home

by thatlittlesoul



Category: Supernatural
Genre: DeanCas - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, also not that anyone asked but call you home by mangas colorado?? big deancas vibes, post-empty deancas lives RENT FREE in my head!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatlittlesoul/pseuds/thatlittlesoul
Summary: Summer had been gone for a while by the time Cas came home.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 32





	call you home

Summer had been gone for a while by the time Cas came home.

Dean remembers the months leading up to it in tired detail.

He closes his eyes and sees August, keeps them shut and sees loud grief and still nights.

That was when the empty had come-- in the rosy fog of summer, after Cas told Dean he loved him and Dean made the mistake of saying it back. 

He had been angry, back in August. He had been angry and lost and sure it was selfish of Cas to leave right when he knew Dean had no choice but to cling to the tatters he left in his wake.

Even if he hadn’t been in love with him, Dean thought it wouldn’t have been fair. It wasn’t fair to Sam, or Jack, or to Claire or Eileen or Jody or anyone else in their doomed little corner who’d had the courage to call Cas their family. 

(“You know. You know I love you,” he’d whispered against the weight of a deal he couldn’t understand at the time, and something in him had felt ready to shatter as Cas shook his head.

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” he’d said against the darkening summer twilight.

Dean thinks that in another life, he could hold Cas and not remember what it was to feel him slip away.)

So he holds August against his chest, and if he thinks about it long enough it runs into September.

If August was angry, September was haunted.

He picks at the seams and it frays into the memory of Cas’ eyes, pale against the watery dregs of late-summer sunlight, and smoke, like rust, hanging in the breeze.

Dean closes his eyes as he grapples with September and most of the time, it slips through the cracks of its own shattered parts.

He doesn’t reach for the shards very often anymore, but on those quiet, haunted nights when the memory of August is too loud to hold on to he remembers the weeks after they got Cas back.

Cas hadn’t wanted to sleep in the bunker.

He hadn’t been willing to say as much, but those first few nights had been vigils for both of them: Cas, with his light on and his door closed and Dean, in the hallway, terrified that Cas was back but never really coming home.

(One night, Cas had gone out, and Dean had tried to remind himself not to let the cold clang of the bunker door choke him. He’d waited a few minutes before following, afraid of slipping up and letting himself love in that stifling way that only ever left him with empty space to fill.

He remembers staggering out the door, trying not to hold his breath and wonder whether emptiness can be escaped. He remembers the stars, and the smell of wet grass, and Cas, silhouetted against the spectral calm of the night. He remembers the small, tired smile Cas had given him as he shuffled over and followed his gaze to the sky.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He’d asked, and it sounded fragile against the sharpness of the night.

Cas had glanced at him again, made an aborted attempt to say something, and then dropped his eyes to the ground. “No. It gets… quiet. After you and Sam go to bed.”

Dean had watched the fog of his breath dissipate in the space between them as he grappled with words too heavy to say with the ghost of the empty clinging to every quiet moment. _In another life_ , he’d thought, _I’d tell you I love you, and we wouldn’t have to worry about burning our ghosts_.

When he grapples with September, this is the night he sees.)

Sometimes September visits in the tired quiet of the morning or the fragile stillness of the night, but it’s a hard month to hold on to, and mostly, he lets it slip away.

When he opens his eyes, he sees October.

October has been early mornings instead of sleepless nights. It’s been tired voices and gentle hands and a quiet understanding that there are still some things too heavy to say out loud.

Cas is beside him, and the air is cold, but October has been softer.

Dean watches leaves flit reckless paths against the burnt autumn sky. He feels Cas’s eyes on him, and he thinks in some ways, they’re both waiting for something October can’t give. He thinks that even now, November isn’t guaranteed, and he’s only ever learned how to wait too long--

“Dean.” Cas’s hand on his shoulder is warm and grounding and something in Dean aches just a little bit at the touch as he looks up. Cas just holds his gaze and waits, and Dean realizes he’s waiting for an explanation he doesn’t know how to give.

He doesn’t know how to say that in quiet moments he still forgets how to breathe under the weight of the time they had and the time they might not have. He doesn’t know how to say he knows it’s not fair to ask Cas to come back from oblivion and love him the same but he’s absolutely ruined himself with the hope of it.

He doesn’t know how to say I love you without letting the ghost of it splinter the space between them so he says, “We should do something for Thanksgiving this year,” and looks away.

He hears Cas huff a laugh. “I think Jack would like that,” he says, and then, “I love you.”

Dean thinks he looks up a little too fast.

And there’s no cosmic deal hanging over them but he watches a stray leaf skitter across the pavement and nods. “I love you too,” he mutters and glances up. “Don’t go anywhere this time.”

“I won’t,” Cas says, and he’s humoring Dean but he takes Dean’s hand and twines their fingers together and Dean lets himself lean into him to combat the cold.

The sun is lower on the horizon now. The days are shorter, and the air is colder, and the streets are less hazy with smoke, and Dean has a hand to hold while he watches the month begin to fade.

November isn’t guaranteed, but October is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! I absolutely live for feedback if you're feeling it, even if you just want to scream incoherently about the upcoming episodes <3  
> for more clownery feel free to come find me on tumblr [@a-give-em-hell-attitude](https://a-give-em-hell-attitude.tumblr.com)!!


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